Soulcalibur V (ソウルキャリバーV Sourukyaribā Faivu) is the sixth installment of Namco'sSoul series of fighting games and was released on January 31, 2012 on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in North America. It was released on February 2, 2012 in Japan and Europe. Digital editions were also released on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live on April 23, 2013.

Contents

Development

Soulcalibur V had been teased about since late 2010 when Daishi Odashima, the game director, tweeted that "SC is back!". The game was officially announced May 11, 2011 at their Level Up Press Conference in Dubai. The character roster consists of 28 characters, half of which could be considered new characters. The game allows the characters to fight in more than 20 stages. Project Soul released the game on January 31, 2012 in the US and February 2nd, 2012 in Japan and Europe.

The development of the story mode was done alongside developer CyberConnect2, the developer that did the .hack series as well as the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja series.

Digital editions of the game were released on April 23, 2013. In Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Australia, a "Legendary Edition" was also be released, including Dampierre and every downloable costumes and armors from the Cepheus Store.

Characters

Returning Characters

Character List

Siegfried Schtauffen (ジークフリート・シュタウフェン Jīkufurīto Shutaufen) the former protagonist of the series. He once wielded Soul Calibur against Nightmare in an attempt to atone for his sins when he was the host of Soul Edge. It was revealed that he defeated and destroyed the Azure Knight in the end of Soulcalibur IV. After 17 years, Siegfried has reformed the Schwarzwind into a band of mercenaries. He wields a zweihander sword.

Nightmare (ナイトメア, Naitomea) is the main antagonist of the series, the living incarnation of Soul Edge. The original Nightmare used Siegfried as a host, but was eventually destroyed by the knight. Now a new Nightmare has risen who goes under the alias of Graf Dumas .

Heishiro Mitsurugi (御剣 平四郎, Mitsurugi Heishirō) is a veteran who has been in the Soul series since the first game. He wields a katana. He is back to finish his battle with Algol.

Isabella "Ivy" Valentine (イザベラ・バレンタイン - アイヴィー, Izabera Barentain - Aivī) returns in the game looking roughly the same as before, since she stopped aging at 32. She wields a snake sword, a device of her own invention.

Maxi(マキシ, Makishi, also written as 真喜志), a seafaring pirate who uses Nunchaku. He carries a shard of Soul Edge within his body, affecting his aging process as his appearance has not changed over the 17 year gap. He is no longer travelling with Xianghua and Kilik, but now with newcomers Natsu, Xiba and Leixia.

Relationships

Hildegard von Krone (ヒルダ, Hiruda), the princess of the kingdom of Wolfkrone who made her debut in Soulcalibur IV. Her kingdom has fallen and now travels with Siegfried's mercenary band, the Schwarzwind. She has become a mother in the interim between IV and V. She wields a short sword and a spear.

Tira (ティラ, Tira), the loyal servant to Soul Edge, an assassin with dual personalities who fights with a Ring Blade using acrobatic attacks. She appears to not have aged as her official profile mentions "unknown" in her official biography.

Voldo (ヴォルド, Vorudo), a blind and mute man, who serves the merchant Vercci by protecting his beloved Money Pit. Wields matching tri-bladed katars, which he has employed throughout the series since the first installment.

Astaroth (アスタロス, Asutarosu) is a new, mass produced version of the original Astaroth, a golem created by the Greek sorcerer and leader of the Fygul Cestemus cult, Kunpaetku. He wields a giant axe.

Raphael Sorel (ラファエル・ソレル, Rafaeru Soreru) is a French nobleman fencer who uses a sword-rapier to great effect. He is on a journey to find his lost daughter, Amy.

Lord Geo Dampierre (ダンピエール, Danpiēru), a con-artist wielding hidden daggers, returns as a playable character in the game. He was announced as a pre-order-exclusive bonus at selected retailers, and is now available as a DLC character for 400 Microsoft points (Xbox 360) and $4.99 on the PlayStation Store (PlayStation 3).

Cervantes de Leon (セルバンテス・デ・レオン, Serubantesu de Reon), an immortal sea pirate rejuvenated from his undead state. Uses a broadsword and a gun-sword as weapons.

Aeon Calcos (アイオーン・カルコス, Aiōn Karukosu), a man who was cursed into a reptilian form also known as Lizardman. This time around he has feathery wings and wields dual axes.

Yoshimitsu (吉光) the Second, a roguish character who hides behind a mask like his predecessor did. As is tradition, he killed the previous Yoshimitsu and inherited his title. He wields dual katana and a sashimono in a unique way, as his predecessor did.

Algol (アルゴル Arugoru), the Ancient Hero King. He was forced to destroy his own son, Arcturus, because he was possessed by the demonic sword, Soul Edge, an event which caused him to create the holy sword Soul Calibur from a shard of Soul Edge. He uses miniaturized versions of Soul Calibur and Soul Edge which appear in battle in place of his hands, as well as a cannon that shoots violet and black energy spheres of varying sizes.

Edge Master (エッジマスター Ejjimasutaa), an old man with an mysterious past. He has mastered all the weapons in the world and he rescued and trained Kilik. He fights using the styles of all the other characters in the game.

Kilik (キリク, Kiriku), former student of Edge Master and the possible current Edge Master. He fights using any of the male styles.

New Characters

Patroklos Alexander (パトロクロス・アレクサンドル, Patorokurosu Arekusandoru) is the main protagonist of Soulcalibur V. He is the son of Soul series veteran Sophitia and Rothion, he is also the nephew of Cassandra. He wields a holy sword and shield in honor of his Mother. He sets on a quest to find his lost sister Pyrrha.

Pyrrha Alexandra (ピュラ・アレクサンドル, Pyura Arekusandoru) is the deuteragonist of Soulcalibur V. She is the daughter of Soul series veteran Sophitia and Rothion, Patroklos' older sister and also Cassandra's niece. She wields her mother's arsenals made by her father: the Omega Sword and Elk Shield.

Natsu (凪津 or ナツ) is a disciple of Soul series veteran Taki. Natsu contains the demon Arahabaki within her. She wields two kodachi like her master before her.

Z.W.E.I. (ツヴァイ, Tsuvai), a dark and brooding man who uses a sword with three handles and can summon a werewolf-like creature called E.I.N..

Yan Leixia(燕蕾夏,イェン・ レイシャ, Yen Reisha) is a fifteen year old girl wielding a Chinese sword. She is the daughter of the former Soul Calibur wielder, Xianghua.

Viola (ヴィ オラ, Viora), an elegant young woman working with Z.W.E.I. She suffers from amnesia and does not remember her past. She uses a floating magic orb as her weapon. She bears an uncanny resemblance to Amy.

Xiba(シバ, Shiba), a young adventurer who loves eating and his weapon of choice is a staff. He is the spiritual successor of Kilik. He is passed on the Kali-Yuga after him.

α Patroklos (アルファ・パトロクロス, Arufa Patorokurosu), a supreme form of the young protagonist. He wields Soul Calibur and uses a style very similar to that of Soul series veteran Setsuka.

Pyrrha Ω, a possessed variation of the deuteragonist. She wields Soul Edge and uses a style very similar to that of Soul series veteran Sophitia.

Elysium, a female angelic malfester who bears a strong resemblance to Sophitia. She fights using any of the female styles and she wields Soul Calibur.

Devil Jin, is a form of the current primary protagonist of the Tekken series, Jin Kazama. He appears as customization parts and a fighting style in Character Creation after the player has reached Level 5. His fighting style has been given to Katsuhiro Harada, the producer of both Soul series and Tekken (mainly as director of the Tekken project), who appears as a challenge in the Quick Battle mode.

Cut characters from Soulcalibur IV

Many of the characters of the main cast from Soulcalibur IV have not returned. The following includes:

It begins with the final confrontation between Siegfried and Nightmare in which Siegfried kills Nightmare.

Seventeen years later, Patroklos Alexander is seen fighting a group of villagers he considers being malfested. Without hesitation, he kills several of them until he is confronted and defeated by a mysterious stranger named Z.W.E.I.. Patroklos returns to Graf Dumas for his report and after he questions his master, he is shunned by him and forced to fight Voldo.

At the same time, Pyrrha is seen kneeling in front of several dead people, crying. She is joined by a satisfied Tira who compliments her on these killings. Forced to fight other villagers, she reluctantly kills them before she is informed by Tira that she has a brother.

Later, after meeting with Siegfried and being granted to wield Soul Calibur, Patroklos, accompanied by Z.W.E.I. and Viola, sets on finding his sister and the malfested who kidnapped her. After fighting Tira twice, Patroklos is finally reunited with his long lost sister. During their travels, in which Pyrrha shows some symptoms of malfestation, they are attacked by Astaroth and later by Voldo. During the battle with Astaroth, Patroklos is injured and Pyrrha is forced to fight Voldo. Later they meet Ivy who tends to Patroklos' wounds.

They arrive in a city where malfested are wreaking havoc. Graf Dumas is revealed to be a reincarnated Nightmare who used Patroklos, tricking him to think he was killing malfested while in fact he killed innocent human beings. Incapacitated due to his wounds, Patroklos is unable to fight his former master and once again, Pyrrha has to step forward and fight. She turns into a malfested and defeats Nightmare. A shocked Patroklos rejects her and runs away, while Tira reunites with Pyrrha, telling her she was right. Pyrrha acknowledges that Tira is the only person she can ever trust.

Patroklos returns to Seigfried where he tells Z.W.E.I. of Dumas' real identity. Left alone, Patroklos has a vision of an angelic entity looking exactly like his late mother Sophitia. She tells him that he must revive Soul Calibur in order to cure Pyrrha of her malfestation. Forced to fight Z.W.E.I., Patroklos comes to realize his true destiny.

He sets out on a journey to resurrect Soul Calibur, seeking the help of Ivy. She informs him that she came across a man named Kilik who had one of the artifacts necessary for the process, while the other one was detained by a women. Patroklos comes across three teenagers: Natsu, Leixia and Xiba who travel with Maxi. To prove his worth, Patroklos is forced to face them all.

After resurrecting Soul Calibur, Patroklos faces his malfested sister who was now the new host of Soul Edge. She had been wreaking havoc all around her. After he kills her and encases her into crystal, the entity, Elysium pretending to be his mother, Sophitia appears in front of him and congratulates him.

While this occurs, Siegfried and Z.W.E.I., along with Schwarzwind, fight the army of the malfested. Z.W.E.I. fights and defeats Nightmare, but he is stabbed in the back by Pyrrha and falls into the abyss, his fate left unknown. Pyrrha seizes Soul Edge for herself and opens a rift to the Astral Chaos.

Meanwhile, Patroklos questions his acts and he is confronted by Edge Master. Patroklos is brought back in the moments where he resurrected Soul Calibur, then confronts his sister again. Refusing to kill her, Patroklos is punished by Elysium who encases him in crystal.

Pyrrha regains her spirits and seeing her brother in crystal. She then took up Soul Edge and was able to overcome its will and she tries to break him free by chipping away the crystal.

In what appears to be another plane of existence of Patroklos' conscience, the entity, named Elysium, reveals herself to be the incarnation of Soul Calibur, tells him that she will use him to destroy the malfested in order to bring peace to the world. Breaking free of his crystal prison and realizing that it was never his mother guiding him, he fights and defeats her, then says goodbye to his "mother".

Waking up, Patroklos is once again reunited with his sister. Despite her being malfested, he is ready to accept her the way she is, just like their mother would have, and together, they banish both soul swords in the Astral Chaos and close the rift.

Pyrrha and Patroklos then depart together in the sunset.

Game Modes

Stages

There are 27 stages, one per character (except Dampierre sharing with Patroklos and Devil Jin sharing with Ezio Auditore), where the player has the choice to play either of the characters' music theme or the stages' background music (Ex: Pyrrha’s theme, Colisseum’s theme…). In addition, some stages are multi-tiered and make a transition to new areas under certain conditions. Multi- tiered stages are marked with *:

Characters

Trivia

Unfortunately, Soulcalibur V is the first game in the series to do away with individual endings in the arcade mode, which means several characters amount to cameos in the single Patroklos-focused story mode, and quite a few make absolutely no appearances at all.

The official website for Soulcalibur V[1] has been criticized by the community for incomplete information, bad translations and providing differing character descriptions to different language versions of the site. For a long period of time, the only page containing the main characters', Patroklos' and Pyrrha's, profiles was the Japanese website, while on the other websites their profiles did not appear at all. There also appeared a big discrepancy between Xiba's profile in the English website and the other language versions, where it was stated that he is Kilik's and Xianghua's estranged son. This information has been removed shortly after being discovered by the community, however it also appeared on the Japanese website and in the Japanese artbook while not being included in the artbook that was released with the Collector's Edition of the game or in the Soulcalibur V Official Guide.

Out of all the returning characters, only Mitsurugi, Hilde and Siegfried (and possibly Viola, who is speculated to be an amnesiac, aged Amy) show signs of physical aging since the previous installment.

Despite Project Soul's claims that this game is being designed to remove similar fighting styles it is most likely the first game in the series with such little variety in the cast, deploying three mimic type characters included as main characters.

This is the first (and only) game to use the new Project Soul logo.

This is also the first game to ever show both Soul swords changing form on-screen.

Soulcalibur V's story mode was originally planned to be four times bigger than it actually is, but time restraints meant it needed to be cut back. That’s according to game director Daishi Odashima who was speaking to Train2Game in an interview.

Soulcalibur V is the first game in the Soul series that have Multi-Tier stages (such as:Utopia of the Blessed etc.)

It is also the first game in the series to have Infinite stages, which are common in the Tekken series of video games.

The story of Soulcalibur V is said to be set in the year 1607. However, it takes place seventeen years after the events of Soulcalibur II, Soulcalibur III and Soulcalibur IV, which means the story should actually be set in the year 1608.

It is unknown how the team that worked on story mode confused the dates.

A data mine of the game's files revealed an unfinished character model for Zasalamel, which leads to the conclusion that he was planned to make an appearance, but was cut due to time constraints, as well as other complications theat hindered Soul Calibur V's development.